


Outsider's Escape for a Broken Heart

by indevan



Category: Marvel (Comics), Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Coffee Shops, Family, Getting Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29944803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Billy meets a cute boy at a coffeeshop, which is a fine respite from the fact that everything seems to be unraveling around him
Relationships: David Alleyne/Tommy Shepherd, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Teddy Altman/Billy Kaplan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Outsider's Escape for a Broken Heart

**Author's Note:**

> i started this fic two-ish (?) months ago and i wanted to wait until it was finished to post it--and it is! i'll be uploading a chapter every tuesday. this is also my first time writing these characters since...i want to say 2009, 2010 at the latest? i'm playing fast and loose with any canon that's referenced as it's comics where the rules are made up and the points don't matter lol

The moon is bright and seems bigger, almost low in the sky. It’s behind a thin veil of clouds, but it shines so brightly that they might as well not be there. It creates almost a halo around it. Billy leans against his windowsill, looking up at it. It’s cold for early fall, he thinks. It’s only the end of September, but he can feel how cold the glass of the window is without even touching it.

Billy closes his eyes against the intensity of the glow and lets the cold, milky light spill over him. He breathes in and then out and opens his eyes. The moon stares back, bright enough to leave an afterimage when he blinks.

After what feels like a long time, he pulls away from the window. He pulls his blinds down and twists them closed to block the light of the moon. He can still feel it, though, just outside his window. So bright that he can’t see any stars around it.

He crawls into his bed and pulls the covers up over his head. All around him the house is quiet--something that is rarely the case. There’s always so much noise going on here: his brother and his mother, a rotating cast of visiting family members. Sometimes he can’t think, but usually he likes it. Right now, the house is completely silent. The silence envelops Billy as much as his blankets do. He decides against pulling them over his head and wriggles out. He stares at his ceiling, at the grainy darkness, until sleep eventually takes him.

The silence of the house, of course, has to be broken once morning comes. Billy cracks his back and jerks his neck to the side when the sound of the bathroom door slamming somewhere down the hall wakes him up. He hates falling asleep on his back. His body is used to being on its side. Sleeping on his back makes his neck all weird--which is happening more and more often now since he turned twenty-three back in May. So maybe, really, he should be grateful for being woken up by noise.

Billy sits up and arches his back in a stretch, his arms above his head. As he lowers them, he ruffles at his hair and yawns. He  _ could _ try to get some more sleep since he isn’t sure how long his brother is going to be in the bathroom, but his body has this annoying habit of, when he’s up, he’s  _ up. _ No chance in falling back to sleep. He also can’t nap. It’s super inconvenient.

He pushes the covers back and shivers. He hates sleeping in socks, so he has to find some immediately before tromping around on their frigid hardwood floors. Billy manages to find some slipper socks balled in the corner of one of the drawers in his dresser. He figures that’s his reward for hopping over here in his bare feet, trying to touch the ground as little as possible.

Billy pads down the hall to the bathroom, reaching the door just in time for his brother to fling it open. He stops for a moment to take Tommy in and cocks his head to the side.

“When did you dye your hair?”

One upside to having an identical twin is seeing what potential styles would look good on you. Thanks to Tommy, he knows what he would look like with a tongue piercing. Now he can see what he would look like with cotton candy pink hair. Truthfully, it isn’t a bad look.

“Last night,” he says. “I had to.”

“Had to?”

He nods.

“Yeah. Grandpa’s one friend--the British dude?--he comes up to me when I stopped by and was like ‘oh, Pietro, I didn’t know you were visiting.’”

Billy pauses.

“Is that what you think British accents sound like?”

“Oh, fuck off. But, yeah, I am an  _ individual. _ I already share a face with you. I  _ don’t _ need to share one with Uncle Pete, too.”

Billy nods in understanding. Truthfully he’s never minded being a twin, but he supposes that he gets his point. Or at least he can fake it until Tommy steps aside and lets him have use of the bathroom.

When he goes downstairs to the kitchen, Tommy is perched on the counter, eating cereal from a soup tureen.

“Wanna go to that new coffee place today?” he asks, spraying a good amount of half-chewed shredded wheat onto the floor of the kitchen.

Billy cringes at his manners and then considers his words.

“Sure. Which one?”

Tommy wipes milk from his mouth with the sleeve of his henley and shrugs.

“I dunno. The one near Rife’s. You know those little locally owned places that are super cutesy and tacky and have old, nasty board games they want you to play and it’s all cute until they eventually get gobbled up by some conglomerate.”

He’s not surprised that Tommy was able to get that entire statement out in one breath. He and their uncle share the ability to get an incredible amount of words out very quickly. Whether anyone can understand them or not is up for debate, but everyone in their family has been around them enough to typically be able to decipher it. Or at least get the general gist.

“We have to do something before Thursday night dinner,” he says in reply.

“Exactly.”

Every Thursday, his aunt and uncle--and occasionally his grandfather--convene here for dinner. His aunt’s on-again, off-again boyfriend or their cousin, Luna, comes along as well. It’s always very loud. Billy sometimes thinks about maybe moving out to his own place with Tommy, but their mother insists that in Europe, multiple generations live together all the time so why not here? The environment can be stifling and it’s always too loud, but he also doesn’t really entertain the thought of leaving too hard. Free rent doesn’t hurt either.

“Where’s mom?”

“Showering. C’mon.” Tommy hops off the counter and turns to dump his cereal bowl into the sink.

“We’re going now?”

“Yeah.”

Also not a surprise. When Tommy decides he wants to do something, he acts on it impulsively. He has less than zero patience. That’s probably why he dyed his hair last night  _ and _ why he got his tongue pierced a few months back.

“And mom?”

“I’ll text her. C’mon.”

Tommy looks at him in a way that’s almost  _ too _ intense and Billy blinks back at him, unused to seeing such an expression on his face. He can’t help but wonder why--it’s just a coffeeshop, after all.

“Uh, alright. Sure.”

\--

The coffeeshop is exactly as Tommy described it. It’s on the corner next to the convenience store where Billy likes to get his Arizona iced teas. The counter is set in the back and there’s a couple tables with mismatched chairs around the scuffed, wooden floor. Near a big window is two couches facing one another. Between them is a low coffee table with a lace runner. The walls are painted a pastel yellow and the molding is sky blue.

Heat blasts at them the second they step inside. Billy reaches up to remove his knit hat, looking around as he does.

“Sweet, no line,” Tommy says. “I’ll give it a couple months before capitalism shoves it into its gaping maw and a Dunks goes up in its place.”

Billy gives him a bit of a shove, partially for his cynicism and partially because he’s being loud and the two people behind the counter are looking at them. He tries to compensate by lifting his hand in a wave. He walks forward and flashes a smile at the cashier who, thankfully, gives one back.

“What can I get you?” he asks.

Billy wants to look at the menu, but his eyes are stuck on the cashier. He looks to be his age and he’s tall and--whoa. Broad as hell. He has a black t-shirt on that showcases the size of his arm muscles. His apron obscures what that tight shirt is doing to his pecs, so Billy has to use his imagination. Even the dorky hat embroidered with the shop’s logo tugged over his blonde hair can’t diminish how cute he is.

“Wh-what do you recommend?” he manages to get out.

The guy flicks at one of his earrings. Each ear is pierced at least four times. Billy likes it.

“I like the pistachio latte a lot,” he says, “but honestly it’s because green is my favorite color.”

“Mine too,” Billy says and shuts his mouth, embarrassed. “Uh. I mean. That sounds great. I’ll get one and, uh.”

He flicks his eyes up to the chalkboard-style mounted behind the counter.

“A salt bagel,” he says. “With habanero cream cheese.”

The guy puts it into the Stark-pad serving as the register.

“Cool. Anything else?”

Tommy prods him in the side.

“Yeah. My order.”

“Pay for your own damn food.”

Their exchange seems to be very amusing to the cute blonde behind the counter and Billy feels heat prickle against the back of his neck. No one in his family can go anywhere without making fools of themselves. It’s their curse.

“Can I get a name for the order?” he asks, a laugh chasing at his words.

“Billy.”

“Billy,” he repeats. “Got it.”

He watches him tap it in and finds himself looking at the name tag pinned to his apron. TEDDY is written on it in green sharpie. Near the tag are other pins, notably one that is unmistakably the pride flag. Billy raises his eyebrows before lifting his head to glance back up at him.

_ Ugh, how do I telegraph that I’m noticing his pin in a gay way and not a douchebag way without just saying it? _

“I’ll bring your order out when it’s ready,” Teddy says. If he notices Billy’s staring, he makes no mention of it. With a wink to Tommy he says, “Both of your orders.”

That wink follows Billy to one of the worn, antique couches and it wasn’t even directed at him. He sinks into the poorly supported cushions and struggles to sit back up.

“He’s cute,” Tommy says.

“Yeah.”

Billy is still thinking about the wink. And how it was given to Tommy. He fights back a sigh. This would be far from the first time that a hot guy passed him up for his brother. Despite looking exactly the same, Tommy was more outgoing and charismatic and so drew more people to him. He also has that “bad boy” thing going where the only “bad boy” Billy knows is that song by Cascada.

“Not my type, though.”

“No?”

Billy is more than a little dubious. Tommy’s type is fairly broad--in fact it typically seems to be “hey, you’re hot.” He wonders if he picked up on Billy outright staring at him and is allowing him to have a chance. He doesn’t know if he should be flattered or offended.

“Nah. Beefy types are more your thing,” he says, waving a hand, “and, anyway, he seems like he might be a serious nerd. Also your thing.”

Any nerd vibes Teddy may have been giving off, Billy hasn’t caught. He was too distracted by his biceps.

Tommy jumps to his feet and peruses the bookshelf filled with--as he predicted--worn board games. He grabs a blue, square box and plops it on the coffee table.

“Check it out,” he says, “Trivial Pursuit from 1981. Have fun forgetting the last, like, forty years, right?”

He works the lid off and Billy reaches for one of the boxes containing the question cards. The game faintly smells like old storage and dust. He picks up a card and snorts a laugh.

“The Soviet Union,” he reads. “Yeah.”

“Wanna play?”

Tommy holds up two of the circular pieces. One still has a wedge shoved in it from God knows when.

“I dunno.”

He grins viciously.

“There’s also Uno.”

Billy winces. Games of Uno in their family are notorious for getting nearly violent. Same with Monopoly. Or, really, any type of game. Everyone is always one step from falling off the deep end. It isn’t typically bad, though, he doesn’t think. As much as they’re yelling and trying to yank cards out of each other’s hands, they’re also laughing. Even so, according to his mother, his grandfather banned everyone from playing Monopoly for three years after she and his uncle got into it so badly that she ended up throwing the board out the window while screaming, “NO MORE MONOPOLY!”

Billy felt bad for his poor father who had a much more typical, genial relationship with  _ his _ brother and was also substantially less competitive than any of them. He sometimes thinks he takes after him in that regard, but he also can’t deny the fact that one time Tommy made him draw four when he had one card remaining in Uno and Billy had thrown the entire draw pile of cards at his face, so. Maybe not.

“No Uno,” he says firmly. “I think this guy is cute. I don’t need him seeing me like that.”

“Fair enough. Trivial Pursuit, then?”

“Still no.”

“Good call. Half the wedges are missing anyway.”

Billy looks up at the new voice to see that the cashier, Teddy, has come over with their orders. He’s a bit chagrined to see that he and Tommy ordered the exact same food, but that isn’t completely unexpected. His own drink is set in front of him in a charming, ceramic mug that’s a glossy moss green color.

“I gave you green,” Teddy says, “Since, uh, you said it was your favorite color.”

Billy feels his cheeks heat up and he hopes that a blush isn’t manifesting on his cheeks.

“Oh--um--thanks!”

Tommy makes a barely disguised gag as he takes his cold brew from Teddy. How he can drink cold drinks regardless of the weather is always astounding to Billy.

“I like your shirt, by the way,” Teddy says. “ _ Dream Warriors  _ is my favorite  _ Nightmare _ movie.”

Billy sits up straight.

“Mine too!” he says. “I really only like the first and third one, though.”

Teddy nods.

“Yeah, same. I kinda like the fifth one but only because the fourth one was  _ so bad _ that the quality jump is unreal.”

“Right?” Billy laughs, “And, of course, the second one.”

“Gay cultural milestone for sure,” Teddy says with a grin. “For as much of a mess as it is.”

Billy sees this as an opening. He taps the still hot side of his mug and nods.

“Yeah. Actually a few weeks ago, me and my brother went to X-Gene and in the upstairs bar area, the TVs were playing the dance scene.”

There’s something in Teddy’s eyes that lights up a little at the mention of the club. He looks like he wants to say more but, the other barista is giving him a look so instead he dimples another amazing grin and bids them farewell.

“He was flirting,” Tommy says from around his straw.

“You think? I think he was just making conversation.”

Tommy makes a face while he reaches forward to tear a piece off of his bagel.

“What is your damage? We look exactly the same so if I’m a snack, you’re a snack. Fuckin’ hell.”

Billy sighs as he lifts his mug with both hands to his face. The exhale of air lightly buffets the steam emanating from his hot drink.

“I guess that’s a compliment.”

“No shit.”

They pass the time drinking their drinks and eating their bagels. As they do, Tommy picks up random cards from the Trivial Pursuit game and reads down them while Billy tries to guess the answers.

When Billy’s mug and both of their plates are empty, Teddy returns. There are a few other people in the coffeeshop now, but they’re seated at the tables, still drinking their drinks. In between answering questions, Billy couldn’t help but notice that Teddy didn’t personally bring drinks and food out to anyone else--just called out names from the counter. He doesn’t want to think that means anything.

“How was the cream cheese?” he asks.

“Great,” Tommy says, crunching ice from his drink between his teeth as he smirks.

Teddy, though, isn’t looking at him. He’s watching Billy with an expectant look in his eyes.

“What about the latte?”

“Really good,” he says.

“Cool.” Teddy picks up the mug and stacks the plates. “So, uh, I was thinking--your name’s Billy, right?”

He nods.

“Yeah.

“Well--my name’s Teddy.”

Which Billy already knows because he stared at his nametag when he came in like a freak. He tries to school his face into a look of surprise.

“Bill and Ted,” he blurts out in an extremely uncool manner.

_ Nailed it, Maximoff. _

Teddy, though, laughs.

“Yeah. Wanna know what’s funnier? My middle name is Rufus.”

Billy laughs with him.

“See, that’s where it ends. My middle initial isn’t ‘s,’” he says. “It’s ‘d.’ For, uh, Django. Which you didn’t ask, but. That’s what it is!”

Across from him, Tommy rubs his temples in annoyance. Teddy, though, still seems amused.

“Well, Billy Django--I. Okay, so I don’t do this with every cute guy who comes in here, but. Uh. Here.”

He places Billy’s mug onto the two stacked plates and reaches into the pocket of his uniform. He produces a strip of paper with a number scrawled on it in the same green Sharpie as Teddy’s name tag.

He hands it to him and Billy notices that there’s a bit of a blush coloring his cheeks. Billy takes it and swallows nervously.

“Cool. I’ll--text you? Like, so you have mine,” he says.

“Cool,” Teddy echoes. He lets out a little chuckle. “Sorry. I just got stoked finding someone with common interests who’s, you know, also gay. So if I’m coming on too strongly--”

Billy cuts him off with a shake of his head.

“No, it’s fine. That’s super cool,” he says. With a sly little smile, he adds, “Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan.”

Teddy smiles back.

\--

On the walk home, Tommy hooks his arm around Billy’s neck and drags him close.

“How much do you love me?” he asks. His breath is hot on his chilled cheeks and smells like a mix of cream cheese and coffee. It isn’t pleasant.

“What?”

Billy tries to wriggle out of his hold without losing his hat. By the time they left the coffeeshop, it was late afternoon and the sun had begun to dip below the horizon. The wind has picked up, too, and he’d much rather have a layer of knit wool protecting his ears against the wind.

“I told you to go to the coffeeshop and you met your future boyfriend,” he says simply.

He finally breaks free and tugs his hat back over his ears from where it got knocked askew.

“He isn’t my future boyfriend--he’s just a super cute guy who happens to like the same movies as me.”

“Right. Despite being a giant dorkus, you got the dude’s number,” he says. “Which, by the way, is that how you flirt? How are you not a virgin again?”

Billy sighs.

“Guys at the club don’t care about your flirting technique.”

Tommy shrugs.

“I guess. Music’s too loud to hear you make an ass of yourself.”

He swings at him but, as usual, Tommy is able to dodge it easily. He’s always had better reflexes than him.

They manage to arrive at home before anyone else has arrived and find their mom standing in the living room, tapping at her phone.

“Chinese?” Billy asks even though he knows he doesn’t really have to.

After years, they’ve finally managed to successfully convince their mother that she isn’t a very good cook. Her insistence is that “color equals flavor,” which is all well and good until she dumps an entire container of paprika into the pot at once.

“Yep,” she says. “I already texted Aunt Lorna what she wants since she’s the only one who ever changes up her order.”

Tommy comes up behind her and drops his arm around her shoulder.

“Actually, mom, I was thinking about having--”

“Too bad,” she says, reaching up to pinch his cheek. “Also, Luna’s coming.”

Billy pauses from dropping his jacket and hat at the door and cocks his head to the side.

“Doesn’t Uncle Pietro usually pick her up on Fridays?”

“Yes, but your Aunt Crystal has a date tonight and asked if he could take her a day early.”

Tommy raises his brows and purses his lips.

“A date? Same guy?”

Their mother shakes her head. “No, new guy. That woman can’t be single for more than a week.”

As far as conversations about their aunt--or  _ ex-aunt _ as the case may be--this one isn’t as vicious as they can get. Not that Billy wholly  _ blames _ his mom for her dislike considering the amount of times Aunt Crystal cheated on their uncle during their marriage. He doesn’t know all the details, but he knows things got--messy. They finally divorced when Billy was still in high school and everyone seemed the better for it. And that divorce set the stage for everyone being ready to be there to support Billy’s mother and father when  _ they _ divorced only three years ago.

“So that means I get extra fried rice,” Tommy says with a grin. “Luna never finishes.”

“Right, and--” Their mother frowns. “What’s with the hair?”

Tommy reaches up and touches his hair as if he forgot it was there.

“Oh, I…” He trails off for a moment. “I...dyed it.”

For a moment, Billy doesn’t see his self-assured twin brother. He looks confused.

“I can see that,” their mom says. “Why?”

He blinks down at his feet and then lifts his head. Tommy’s hands are in his hair, tugging on it lightly.

“I…”

“Because grandpa’s friend,” Billy says. “He confused him for Uncle Pietro. So he dyed it.”

Tommy lets go of his hair and then laughs.

“Yeah. Thanks, Billy.” He gives a slight smirk. “And pink fades pretty fast so if I hate it, it won’t last long.”

The moment is over and Tommy is back.

_ What was that about? _

He shakes his head, chalking it up to his family’s weird and varied mental health history. Billy’s fairly certain that the family DBT specialist’s new vacation home in the Bahamas is thanks to the money she makes off of them.

“Tommy--” he starts, but is cut off by the ringing of the doorbell.

Billy is still closest to the door and he opens it to reveal his uncle and cousin.

“Hey,” he says.

The moment with Tommy is forgotten as Luna lunges forward to hug him.

“Hey-hey!” she exclaims as if she hasn’t seen him in months.

He catches her and hugs her tight in return.

“You saw me last week,” he says.

“So?”

“Let us in, I’m freezing,” his uncle says. “Cold as hell for September…”

Billy steps aside, still holding Luna as she clings to him, to let his uncle in. He’s right--it  _ is _ colder than it ought to be. Not that he wholly minds it--if anything, Billy prefers colder weather to hot. It’s another one of those “opposite twin” things he and Tommy share. Billy likes the winter and Tommy likes the summer.

Luna abandons him for Tommy once she catches sight of him.

“Your  _ hair!” _ she exclaims. “I love it.”

Billy watches his brother’s reaction carefully this time. The moment of weirdness hasn’t quite left his mind--but no. Tommy grins and ruffles his hair.

“Right?”

“Purple’s better than pink, though.” Luna makes a face. “I asked mom if I could dye purple streaks in my hair and she said no.”

“I said yes,” his uncle says with a slight smirk.

Billy watches his mom grind a knuckle in between his ribs to make him jump.

“Don’t do things out of spite.”

“What? It’s just hair. Why can’t she dye it?”

“Pietro…”

Tommy lifts up a chunk of her blonde hair and tilts his head to the side.

“I’ll do it for you.”

“Tommy, you aren’t helping,” his mom says.

Already everyone is talking over each other and talking at once. Sometimes it’s too much--Billy gets too overstimulated to do much more than sit on the couch--but normally he’s used to it. This is how his family is: loud and argumentative, but loving.

Typically.

While they wait for their aunt to get here, Billy sets out napkins and utensils while Tommy grabs paper plates to put on the dining room table. There’s a smaller table in the kitchen, where the four of them used to eat--each of them getting one side. It feels empty, Billy thinks, without his father there occupying his side. After Thursday night dinners, his mother and her siblings would sit there having adult discussions. Billy always felt special when he got to be privy to them, because they always talked about everything--although, truthfully, he used to cringe and want to leave the room whenever his mom started talking about his dad.

“Billy met a boy today,” Tommy says, loudly and suddenly.

Billy blinks out of his thoughts, halfway through folding a paper napkin in half.

“Oh?” His mother’s lips curve upward in a smile. “Where?”

“At the coffeeshop,” he says. “His name is Teddy.”

His uncle snorts a laugh.

“Seriously? Billy and Teddy?”

Once more, his mother jabs a finger into his ribs.

“Pietro!”

Tommy drops a plate onto the table and gives a smirk.

“I think we should be proud. Billy can get a guy’s number without having three vodka Red Bulls first.”

“Hey!” he says, wounded. “I don’t even drink those, Tommy. You do!”

His brother blinks at him twice before nodding.

“That’s true. They make me feel like I can vibrate through walls--it’s great.”

“Tch,” Uncle Pietro scoffs with a roll of his eyes. “Vodka Red Bull. When I was your age, I just dumped caffeine pills in my drink and let whatever happened happen.”

Billy figures he’s only being this open since Luna is in the bathroom. Usually candid discussions like this are reserved for post-dinner at the kitchen table.

“I remember one of those times,” his mom says, sighing. To Billy and Tommy, she says, “Your uncle had stripped down to his underwear and was running down the street faster than I’d ever seen. I had to chase after him while carrying his clothes.”

Uncle Pietro frowns. “I don’t remember that.”

“Of course you didn’t. I was amazed you didn’t have a heart attack that night. Your heartbeat sounded like a hummingbird’s.”

Billy shakes his head and reoccupies himself with folding napkins until Aunt Lorna arrives with the food being delivered shortly thereafter. Tommy couldn’t embarrass him anymore nor could they talk about his mom and uncle’s wild, misspent youth. He instead thinks about his phone in his pocket. He’s already entered Teddy’s number in there, but he wants to wait to text him. He doesn’t want to come off that desperate.

He’s still thinking about it, when he notices that Luna’s staring at him from across the table. The fried rice she’d scooped onto her plate sits untouched. A pea rolls down it to settle on the plate.

“Billy,” she says. “Why are you sad?”

He blinks at her.

“What?”

He looks around the table, wondering if anyone else heard her, but no. Everyone is engrossed in eating and their own conversations.

“You’re so sad. I can feel it. What’s wrong?”

“I...I’m not.” He swallows, throat suddenly dry.

“You are,” she insists. “Why are you sad, Billy? Billy, why are you sad?”

Luna stands up and braces her hands on the table.

“You’re too sad, Billy,” she says. “Billy...please.”

Sweat springs onto his temples. He begins to hear his heart throb in his ears. Can almost hear his breath. His chest is suddenly tight--what’s going on?

“Luna, sit back down, sweetie,” Aunt Lorna says absently, her voice faraway.

“I can’t,” she says. “Can’t you see? Billy...Billy…”

Luna’s eyes roll back into her head and she crumples to the floor. Everything seems to snap back to normal. Everyone around jumps up, chairs knocked backwards. Distantly, Billy hears them thunk on the floor.

“Luna!” Uncle Pietro exclaims.

He bends down to scoop her up. Luna doesn’t respond. Her head lolls backwards and he moves quickly to support it.

“Luna!”

His mother grabs at his shoulder.

“Come on. I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

Another flurry of movement and they’re both gone along with Luna.

“What happened?” Tommy asks. “She just...fainted.”

Aunt Lorna shakes her head.

“No idea--blood sugar, maybe? I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

They both continue to talk--Billy can see their mouths moving and their hands gesturing, but he isn’t registering what they’re saying. He’s still seated, staring across the table. Luna’s uneaten fried rice stares back at him, offering no answers about what just happened.

Another pea rolls off the mound and onto the plate.

\--

Billy sits alone in his room later, staring at his phone in the dark. His mother had arrived home an hour earlier and informed him that Luna had regained consciousness and, according to the doctor, is absolutely fine. He thinks about what Aunt Lorna said about blood sugar--that had to be it. He remembers, when they were kids, Tommy once passed out on the boardwalk after his own dipped too low. Their father had to carry him for the rest of the day. If it’s anything like that, he imagines that Luna is going to be like he was: dizzy, lethargic, tired. But he’s glad she’s okay.

Even if he can’t get the look in her eyes out of his mind.

He slides his phone to unlock it and types in his code. The four digit numbers flash over his face briefly and, for a brief moment, Billy wonders what they signify.

_ Right. They signify that you like random numbers, doofus. Calm down. _

Billy exhales. He’s on edge after the weirdness of the evening and the worry that gripped him when Luna fainted. He uses his thumb to scroll to Teddy’s name and selects it.

**(You):** _ hey this is billy the guy from earlier today! just was sending you a text to say hi _

He presses send and cringes at himself. Part of him wanted to give the excuse of wanting to wait until he was off work or being with his family to explain why he isn’t texting until now but another part of him wants to at least have some concept of being cool and not texting Teddy immediately. Right? Shit. Actually holding a conversation with a guy you wanted to befriend, who you thought was cute, was so much easier than just waiting for some guy from the club to ghost you.

His phone vibrates

**(Teddy):** _hey! good timing i just got home lol_

Billy smiles at his lit up screen. They go back and forth, talking about their evenings. Billy chooses not to mention the incident with Luna. Teddy probably doesn’t want to hear it anyway. Subjects veer away from themselves and towards shared interests.

**(Teddy):** _ btw i have to warn you...i’m married _

He stares at the message for a moment, acknowledging it. Teddy’s married, but he already knew that, didn’t he? Billy nods at it. He’s about to respond, when Teddy sends another message: a picture of an anime character he doesn’t recognize.

**(Teddy):** _this is my husband lmao_

Billy exhales a laugh and sends back that he can’t possibly compare.

**(Teddy):** _nah you’re cuter on the basis of being real_

Heat rises to his cheeks. Teddy thinks he’s cute--maybe Tommy was right and he  _ was _ flirting. Billy chews his lip, unsure how to proceed.

**(You):** _you’re pretty cute yourself_

“Nailed it,” he says to himself, wincing.

Luckily, Teddy sends back a few emojis. They continue on until they decide to make plans for the day after tomorrow: Teddy’s day off. Billy sets his phone to the side so he can go get ready for bed. He feels better--talking to Teddy has made the weirdness of the evening push itself to the back of his mind.

Almost, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/smugsnail)!


End file.
